From 2015, early Summer means NewEnglish time. This year our annualexhibition moves its date from November/

December to sunny June. Submissions for thepublic send-in opened the day after our 2014show closed in early December, so we hardlyhad time to draw breath before planning startedin earnest for this year. As I write this, we havefinished the first phase of selection and arelooking forward to seeing members’ new workarrive in the gallery. When you receive thisnewsletter, you will also have our catalogue,which illustrates one work by each exhibitingmember artist. Many more paintings may beseen online at www.neac.co.uk and may bepurchased through the website. The exhibitionopens to the public on Thursday 18th June, butas a Friend, you will have an opportunity to visitthe show for the Private View on Wednesday17th June. We also look forward to seeingmany of you at our Friends’ and Members’event ‘First Bite’ on the evening of Monday 15thJune. We have more prizes than ever to awardat this year’s show, and are particularly gratefulto our prize givers. The Roboz prize of £5,000is in its second year, and the Doreen McIntoshPrize, also of £5,000 will again be awarded.This year sees the introduction of the £4,000Haworth Prize for a young northern landscapepainter, and the shortlisted entries will be shownin the exhibition alongside the winning painting.Details of all the prizes are to be found in thecatalogue, and last year’s winners are listed onpage 8 of this newsletter.

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ISSUE 22 April 2015The Newsletter for the Friends of the New English Art Club

It’s always good to have an opportunity tocelebrate with friends, and this year sees aspecial celebration as Mary Yapp marks 50years since she established the Albany Galleryin Cardiff. We are delighted that Mary haschosen to mark the occasion with an exhibitionof paintings by about thirty of the currentmembership of the New English. As well as acontinuing relationship with the NEAC over theyears, Mary has shown work by many notable

The Summer Exhibition

Peter Brown Between the hail showers,Pen y Lan Road, Cardiff

‘A Day Dream’ by June BerryI think this figure is a symbol for myself. I can spend a lot of time looking out of the windowor day dreaming and thinking about paintings that are still in my head. The landscaperepresents the views from my studio windows in the depths of rural France and the still liferepresents the flowers and special objects connected with the place where I have workedfor several months of the year for over forty years. It is all very nostalgic!

artists including the late Kyffin Williams RA, forwhom she was Welsh agent for the last 25years of his life. Amongst other artists, the showwill feature new work by Diana Armfield, KenHoward, Peter Brown and Jane Corsellis.Works by Selected NEAC Artists runs from10th September – 3rd October 2015Albany Gallery 74b Albany Road, CardiffCF24 3RS Tel: 029 2048 7158www.albanygallery.com

Albany celebrates 50 years

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Letter from thePresidentRichard Pikesley RWS PNEAC

A wonderful gift to the NEAC fellthrough my letterbox a couple ofweeks ago in the shape of a sepiaphotograph of the last NEACselection committee to be held at

the old Egyptian Hall in 1904. It is a well-knownimage resonant of an era when a generation ofpainters came together to exhibit under thebanner of the New English. Hands in pockets,Augustus John strikes a bohemian pose, rather atodds with someone’s top hat on the table in frontof him. Seated on the table is William Rothensteinwith Roger Fry sitting on a chair beside him. Theother man in a hat is Muirhead Bone, who madea fine drawing of the demolition of the EgyptianHall, also in the possession of the New English.He in turn looks over the shoulder of PhilipWilson Steer. The space looks quite cramped,perhaps always the fate of selection committees,and the floor behind the simple trestle table isstrewn with litter. We don’t know the identities ofthe anonymous porters bringing in a processionof paintings, and there are no women.

James Bland

My work incorporates diverseapproaches to style and subjectbut always begins in drawingand painting from life. My aim isto find an image that resonates

Nick Tidnam Winter Landscape

Nick Tidnam

Drawing has been the connectinglink from my early childhood rightthrough to Art School; lookingand drawing in order tounderstand shape, form, colour

and texture. At school I was encouraged to lookmore widely at artists’ drawings and how theywere used, so a big thank you to JamesRiddock, my art teacher.

Every day at Camberwell there were stimulatingand challenging classes in architecture,

anatomy, life and general drawing, graphicdesign, printmaking, sculpture and ceramics,and all these disciplines had drawing as astarting point with a sketch book being myvisual diary. I keep the Camberwell practice ofdrawing every day so a sketch book is myconstant companion. Drawing is the start of mycreative process, making me look and assess.Then composition and colour come into play,and hopefully, I end up with a work which hasgone some way towards my original intentions.

New Members through simplicity of colour and form.Thoughsome of my paintings are done relativelyquickly, most take a long time and change a lotin the process. They might be cut down, re-stretched, scraped back or painted over. I alsolike the idea that a painting should tell a story.Some influences include Piero della Francesca,Fra Angelico, Paul Klee, Gwen John, KeithVaughan and Euan Uglow.

James Bland Full Moon

No top hats on display but although these images areseparated by 111 years, the similarities are striking.Members of the 2015 selection committee looked atabout 1,000 works from the public submission tochoose about 100 to hang alongside members’paintings in this year’s exhibition.

Michael WhittleseaWinter EveningThis garden is formal but a bit neglected, itsnowed lightly, everyone chose to go for awalk, but I stayed in the conservatory andthought I would paint the view of the garden.Desperation took over as it got darker anddarker. I stopped being careful about thepainting, for me that’s a good thing, and it wasbecoming so dark, I couldn’t see how it wasgoing. I thought, well, it's rather like a diary ofthat afternoon, for better or worse. Everyonereturned, so I stopped. (Difficult to describe theway I work, but uncertainty and not knowinghow it’s going to work, if at all, it’s whathappened that day).

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The story behind the paintingMember artists tell us about some of the paintings in the NEAC Annual Open Exhibition 2015

Melissa Scott Miller Bloomsbury Back Gardens

Melissa Scott MillerBloomsbury back gardensI painted this from the bathroom window of myfriend Comfort’s flat in Percy Circus.It was quite difficult, I had to balance thecanvas on the edge of the washbasin, but Iwanted to get as much in as I could. Thechildren are Comfort’s five children, the little boyon the bike is actually 16 now, my son’s bestfriend, but I painted him as I knew him when wefirst met, and as I remember the many lovelychildren’s parties that happened in that garden.The same cat appears three times in thepainting, he always seemed to be there,through the month it took to paint.

Julian BaileyWindy Pier, WeymouthThe gouaches I do are painted in my studio,usually based on pencil sketches that I make onthe spot, out in the open. They are completedwith many layers of paint, and constantrevisions, until things fall into place in a waythat I feel makes for a good resolution.Gouache is endlessly malleable, so long as youlet the paint dry fully between layers, and thecolour is an absolute joy to use.

Pamela KayTwo Tea Bowls of PrimrosesEvery year I look forward to the first flowers ofspring and the early primroses. These delicate,almost ghostly flowers are deceptively subtle topaint. “Much more difficult than you think” JohnWard once said to me, and he was right. Eachyear, it is important to see them as if for the firsttime, and collecting a range of pots, jars andbowls to put them in, gives a fresh set of ‘props’.The two Chinese tea bowls are old friends that Ifound, chipped and dusty in the shop at theMuseum in Singapore, years ago. I recentlyreturned to the Museum but it had been greatlyenlarged from the old colonial building it usedto be, and the shop, no longer a treasure houseof local antiques, but an expensive boutique.Buy it when you see it is the best advice to anystill life painter!

Michael FaircloughAt Sea – DuskIt was the last of one sequence of nine paintings,part of several series which were provoked by aChannel crossing. Other series in a similar veinare ‘Sea Passage’ and Dog-Watch’, eachdeveloping the theme of the fading of light untilthe final ‘Dog-Watch’ paintings are virtuallyblack and very simple – except that they areactually deeply colourful and full of texture!

Pamela Kay Two Tea Bowls of Primroses

Michael Fairclough At Sea, Dusk IX

Jenny Wheatley View of the IslandsJulian Bailey Windy Pier, Weymouth Michael Whittlesea Winter Evening

Jenny WheatleyView of the IslandsThis painting was inspired by regular visits to theisles of Scilly and is a composite of drawingsthat have come together to try to create thedomestic French-inspired interior with the tranquilview over the islands that I love so much.

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LONDON, SURREY, MIDDLESEX

16.04 – 02.05 Pamela Kay, Salliann Putman and Judith Gardner in a four artist showRussell Gallery 12 Lower Richmond Road, Putney, London SW15 1JP 020 8780 5228 www.russell-gallery.com

16.04 – 01.05 Ryder, Peter Brown, Coates, Jason Bowyer, Bond, Cobley, Kuhfeld, Morris, Scott Miller, Sullivan,Worley, Todd in the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual ExhibitionMall Galleries The Mall, London SW1Y 5BD 020 7930 6844 www.mallgalleries.org.uk

17.04 – 30.04 Patrick Cullen SOLO SHOWHighgate Gallery The Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution, 11 South Grove, London N6 6BS patrickcullen@email.com

08.05 – 17.05 Michael Kirkbride SOLO SHOW of watercoloursAvondale Gallery Avondale Avenue, London N12 8EN (check opening times before visiting) drjgilley@clara.co.uk

21.05 – 07.06 Peter Clossick and Julie Held in TWO ARTIST SHOW ‘Connections’The Lovely Gallery 140 Sydenham Road, London SE26 5JZ 0203 686 1328 www.thelovelygallery.com

08.06 – 16.08 Green, Howard, Armfield, Dunstan, Cuming and others, RA Summer ExhibitionRoyal Academy of Arts Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD 020 7300 8000 www.royalacademy.org.uk

17.06 – 27.06 NEAC Annual ExhibitionMall Galleries The Mall, London SW1Y 5BD 020 7930 6844 www.mallgalleries.org.uk

18.06 – 26.06 Julie Held SOLO SHOW ‘Living Memories: A Life Living in Portraits’London Jewish Cultural Centre Ivy House, 94 – 96 North End Road, London NW11 7SX 020 8457 5000 www.ljcc.org.uk

02.07 – 19.02 Frood, Worley, J Williams, Bailey, Wheatley and others in Summer ExhibitionRussell Gallery 12 Lower Richmond Road, Putney, London SW15 1JP 020 8780 5228 www.russell-gallery.com

14.09 – 30.09 Louis Balaam SOLO SHOWCadogan Contemporary 87 Old Brompton Road, London SW7 3LD 020 7581 5451 www.cadogancontemporary.com

24.09 – 10.10 Richard Pikesley SOLO SHOWRussell Gallery 12 Lower Richmond Road, Putney, London SW15 1JP 020 8780 5228 www.russell-gallery.com

29.09 – 21.10 Pamela Kay in group exhibitionLlewellyn Alexander Gallery 124 – 126 The Cut, Waterloo, London SE1 8LN 0207 620 1322/1324 www.lapf.co.uk

13.10 – 06.11 Peter Clossick, Julie Held in London Group Annual OpenCello Factory 33 – 34 Cornwall Road, Waterloo, London SE1 8TJ www.thelondongroup.com

OCTOBER TBA Peter Brown, Patrick Cullen, Ken Howard Exhibition of their 2015 trip to IndiaIndar Pasricha Fine Arts 22 Connaught Street, London W2 2AF 020 7724 9541 www.indarpasrichafinearts.com

15.10 – 31.10 Bob Brown, Francis Bowyer, Coates, Jackson, Pikesley, Putman, Rizvi, Judith Gardner, Parfitt,Hardaker, Halliday, Gilbert and others in the Small Paintings Group ExhibitionRussell Gallery 12 Lower Richmond Road, Putney, London SW15 1JP 020 8780 5228 www.russell-gallery.com

05.11 – 21.11 Jason Bowyer SOLO SHOWRussell Gallery 12 Lower Richmond Road, Putney, London SW15 1JP 020 8780 5228 www.russell-gallery.com

20.01 – 06.02 Ken Howard SOLO SHOWRichard Green Fine Paintings 147 New Bond Street, London W1S 2TS 020 7493 3939 www.richard-green.com

SOUTH, SOUTH EAST, EAST ANGLIA

12.06 – 09.09 Louise Balaam in 20th Anniversary ExhibitionFairfax Art Gallery 23 The Pantiles (Lower Walk), Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2 5TD 01892 525 525 www.fairfaxgallery.com

12.06 – 17.06 Richard Bawden will be the featured artist in an exhibition of paintings, prints and designAldeburgh Gallery 143 High Street, Aldeburgh, Suffolk IP15 5AN 01728 452772 www.josephvalentine.co.uk

13.06 – 05.07 Kelly and others in Summer ExhibitionThompson’s Gallery 175 High Street, Aldeburgh, Suffolk IP15 5AN 01728 453 743 www.thompsonsgallery.co.uk

16.07 – 22.07 Louise Balaam in Josephine Harpur’s exhibitionAldeburgh Gallery 143 High Street, Aldeburgh, Suffolk IP15 5AN 01728 452772 www.josephvalentine.co.uk

19.09 – 15.11 Peter Clossick in ‘Arborealists’National Trust Mottisfont Abbey Romsey, near Romsey, Hampshire SO51 0LP 01794 340757 Email: mottisfont@nationaltrust.org.uk

01.10 – 04.10 Balaam, Gardner, Pikesley in Josephine Harpur’s exhibitionCambridge City Arts Fair The Guild Hall, Market Square, Cambridge CB2 3QJ www.josephineharpur.co.uk

Please note: Dates may change; confirm before going. Not all galleriesare open every day. Some galleries post the art on their website duringand occasionally before the exhibition.

Exhibition DiaryMay – December 2015

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13.11 – 26.11 Balaam, Gardner, Kelly, Pikesley in Josephine Harpur’s exhibitionEdmund Gallery Angel Hill, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk IP33 1LS www.josephineharpur.co.uk

WEST FROM LONDON AND SOUTH WEST

10.07 – 31.08 Richard Bawden Watercolours and printsGallery Nine 9B Margaret’s Buildings, Bath BA1 2LP 01225 319197 www.gallerynine.co.uk

04.10 – 29.11 Carpanini , Balaam, Sidoli and others in the Open ExhibitionRoyal West of England Academy Queen’s Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1PX 01179 735 129 www.rwa.org.uk

07.11 – 28.11 Peter Clossick in ‘Camberwell School of Art’Belgrave Gallery 22 Fore Street, St Ives, Cornwall TR26 1HE 01736 794888 www.belgravestives.co.uk

NORTH OF ENGLAND

15.05 – 24.05 Francis Bowyer in British Art PortfolioSicily Oak Gallery Croxton Green Lane, Chlmondeley, Malpas, Cheshire SY14 8HG www.britishartportfolio.co.uk

WALES

10.09 – 03.10 Selected NEAC artists in 50th Anniversary ExhibitionAlbany Gallery 74b Albany Road, Cardiff CF24 3RS 029 2048 7158 www.albanygallery.com

In conjunction with the NEAC Drawing School, the followingworkshops will take place in and around Mall Galleries. To book yourfree place, please email: drawingschool@neac.co.uk. Early bookingis advised as places are limited to 25 participants per event.

Friday 19 June, 11.30am – 4.00pmLearning Centre, Mall Galleries

Charles Williams will lead a watercolour workshop, painting directlyfrom the model. Having recently published his book ‘Watercolour:How To Paint What You See’, Charles will be offering soundtechnical advice on this most challenging of mediums. Bringwatercolour paper, paints and brushes.

Saturday 20 June, 10.30am – 4.00pmMeet at Mall Galleries

Sarah Spencer will lead a ‘Plein Air’ workshop, which will entaildrawing and sketching in Trafalgar Square in the morning, andpainting in St James’s Park during the afternoon. The emphasis willbe on information gathering and visual note taking. Bring paintingand drawing materials.

Monday 22 June, 10.30am – 4.00pmMeet at Mall Galleries

Julie Jackson will hold a workshop which will explore therelationship between figure and landscape. Initially, you will sketchfrom examples in the NEAC exhibition, where a figure/landscapedynamic has been expressed, and afterwards, you will draw onlocation in St James’s Park and environs. The aim is to developnotational work which could inform future paintings and improvecompositional skills. Bring painting and drawing materials.

Tuesday 23 June, 10.30am - 4.00pmLearning Centre, Mall Galleries

Melvyn Petterson will hold a workshop which will advise on allaspects of printmaking. He will be demonstrating with variousmedia, techniques and tools, giving an invaluable insight into hisartistic practice. Bring painting and drawing materials.

Wednesday 24 June, 10.30am - 4.00pmLearning Centre, Mall Galleries

Alex Fowler will hold a still life drawing and painting workshopexploiting the unique light and layout of the Mall Galleries’ LearningCentre. There will be a choice of subjects with the emphasis ondeveloping compositional acumen and observational skills. Bringpainting and drawing materials.

NEAC June workshopsFor the latest news about NEAC Drawing School events, visit www.neac.co.uk

Alex Fowler Karn’s Geranium and Three Lemons

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study to enrich your art and life

2015

PAINTING TRIPS ABROAD

Paint the Gardens, Castles and Chateaux in Normandy with Pamela Kay 10th - 16th June 2015Normandy is a haven for artists with some of France’s best kept secret and famous gardens includingMonet’s at Giverny and ruined castles and turreted chateaux along the banks of the Seine River andtowns with pretty half-timbered houses. Contact Spencer Scott Travel for more details Pippingford ManorPippingford Park, Nutley, East Sussex TN22 3HW 01825 714310 www.spencerscotttravel.com alsosee Pamela’s website www.pamelakayprints.com

Ken Howard will host a painting holidays in Venice this year from 29th August – 12th September. Formore details, see the Spencer Scott Travel website http://www.spencerscotttravel.com or ‘phone 01825714310.

James Bland is to host a painting holiday with Arte Umbria from 10th – 17th July. Visitwww.arteumbria.com for more details. He is also teaching a two day course in narrative figure paintingat the Art Academy, Mermaid Court, 165a Borough High Street, London SE1 1HRwww.artacademy.org.uk . James has a new website of his own at www.jamesblandpaintings.com

Jenny Wheatley will be teaching in Cumbria, Cyprus, Cornwall and Siena this year. For full detailsand downloads, go to Jenny’s website, www.jennywheatley.co.uk

PAINTING AND DRAWING CLASSES IN THE UK

Paul Curtis is teaching three courses in Derbyshire in 2015. ‘Get it into Perspective is a one day courseon Saturday 27th June, at the Art Room, Barlow. Also at this venue is a day on Landscape Painting inAutumn on Saturday 19th September. Landscape Painting in July runs from 15th – 17th July at theNightingale Centre. For further details of all of these courses go to www.fieldbreaks.co.uk

Melissa Scott Miller teaches at the Royal Drawing School; ‘Animals in Art’ runs from 27th April – 4thJuly on Tuesdays. Her course at Heatherley’s, ‘Painting the Urban Landscape’ runs from April 24th – July10th on Fridays.

Alex Fowler teaches painting at Chelsea Fine Arts, 15 Lots Road, SW10 on Tuesdays 10am-4pm forten weeks during term time. Portrait, Life Painting, Interiors and Still Life Painting all offered. For furtherinformation please contact Alex at alex@alexanderfowler.co.uk or 07903311563.

Louise Balaam will teach at a Landscape Painting Workshop at The New School of Art, Lewes, Sussexon 6th & 7th June. Visit www.tnsoart.com/art-classes/ or ‘phone Camilla Cannon 07961 080897 formore details.

11th – 13th September Anthony Green will open his studio together with Mary Cozens-Walker andKate Green by appointment only through Whitcombe Associates susan@whitcombeassocs.co.uk

Paint in Walberswick and Dunwich with Francis and Jason Bowyer. 11th – 13th July and 15th –17th July. For further details contact jasonbowyeruk@yahoo.co.uk or francis@francisbowyer.com

Judith Gardner will be teaching at Art in Action this year. ‘Light, Mood & Atmosphere’ will run from29th – 31st August and again from 1st – 2nd September. Courses may be booked throughwww.artinaction.org.uk Waterperry House, Waterperry, Near Wheatley, Oxford, OX33 1JZ 7980091297 artinactionartcourses@gmail.com

STOP PRESS

Congratulations to Jason Bowyer who has been awarded The Prince of Wales’s award for PortraitDrawing at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

Toby Ward has been asked by Westminster Abbey to make a body of work recording a number ofdevelopments taking place over the next three years. There is to be extensive development in the triforiumand a certain amount of new building work at the Abbey for the first time since Nicholas Hawksmoor’stowers in the mid-18th Century.

Salliann Putman Landscape Layers 5Winner of the NEAC Critics’ Prize 2014

Michael Cooper Downland FieldsWinner of the Doreen McIntosh Prize 2014

Jason Bowyer A Small Self

Anthony Green Pink Decorative Picture

Paul Newland Edge of TownWinner of the Zsuzsi Roboz Prize 2014

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Many of you will already know thatWilliam Bowyer RA NEAC RP RWSdied on 1st March this year.

Bill will be remembered with great affection byall of us who knew him. He steered the NewEnglish for thirty years from 1968 –1998 as ourHonorary Secretary before we changed the titleto President. He inspired and led the ambitionto see the New English as artistically andfinancially independent, and built a strongfoundation for those who have followed. A fineand distinctive painter, Jason tells me he paintedright up to the end. We will miss him very muchand our thoughts go out to Vera, Jason, Francisand Emma and their wider family.

As a painter, Bill’s life and work were alwaysinextricably linked. He was the Bevin Boy whopainted Arthur Scargill, the cricket fanatic who

painted Viv Richards – both for the NationalPortrait Gallery, and will always beremembered for glorious paintings of theThames at Strand-on-the-Green and close to hishome in Chiswick, and also, in later years, forwonderful pictures of the Suffolk coast aroundWalberswick, where the family made theirsecond home.

These days, the NEAC presidency is for amaximum term of five years, a fact that causedBill considerable amusement when set alongsidehis mammoth, thirty-year stint. As I write this, weare looking forward to our exhibition in June,where we will hang a group of Bill’s paintings,celebrating his life and work.

Richard Pikesley, March 2015

William Bowyer 1926-2015

news, events, and points of interest

‘Living Memories:A Life Living in Portraits’Julie Held’s exhibition ‘Living Memories: A LifeLiving in Portraits’ is at Ivy House in GoldersGreen from 18th May – 26th June 2015.

This exhibition will focus on portraits of artistJulie Held and her family, painted throughout hercareer. This will include a series of paintings anddrawings of her father Peter, who remains oneof her favourite models, as well as paintingsthat deal with the illness and death of her latemother Gisela, who passed away almost 40years ago when the artist was aged just 18.

On show for the first time will be a series ofpaintings that Held paints on her mother’ssignificant birthdays, showing how she imaginesher mother would have been had she lived.

Julie Held studied at Camberwell and the RoyalAcademy Schools. Her work is held in anumber of public collections, including NuffieldCollege, Oxford, New Hall, Cambridge, TheOpen University and the Ben Uri MuseumCollection. She has had solo exhibitions in anumber of galleries in London as well as inPrague, Leipzig and Hamburg.

A series of talks and workshops will take placeat Ivy House during this exhibition. See theExhibition Diary page for more information.

Julie Held Portrait of my FatherWilliam Bowyer The Thames

William Bowyer Chiswick Eyot Under Snow

William Bowyer RA NEAC RP RWS

Charlotte SorapurePainting Don McCullin

We are painting in Tasmania for seven weeks, of which two have beenspent travelling and doing family stuff in the Southern Highlands. The firstweek we had our English palettes going in the intermittent sun, and in thesecond, we used more earthy colours. We couldn't leave the house as theweather was so unpredictable. It is a house of reflections with a darkinterior, huge glass windows running the entire length, and stunning viewseach side of the estuary and to the Cygnet sailing club nestled below thehills. Looking north there’s a fascinating oyster bed with ever changingcolours and beds exposed at low tide, and Tom has done wonderfulquickies for his colour notes. I’m warming up and feel I need anotherseven weeks! The Tasmanians are so friendly, we've met some reallyinteresting locals. Cygnet is an artisan village and one day when our oldbeaten-up Volvo gave up the ghost, we were painting illegally on theedge of some farm. Rescue eventually came by a delightful young man, amaster knife maker, following in his father’s footsteps, who invited us to seehis workshop. Today, I'm painting a colourful crayfish which was soexpensive I hope to get some return! We're eating it tonight.We’ll have to come back next year as we need more time, although

Tom’s achieved, en plein air 40 x 40, and plenty more. I have onewaiting in the wings!Sarah Dempsey, our friend and sponsor, has been painting with us,

there has been an amazing flow of friends, yachties and relations, all fun.Favourite meal: scallops at the local pub with huge portions, washeddown with high tides of beautiful Tas wines.

PRIZE WINNERS AND PRIZE GIVERS AT THENEAC ANNUAL OPEN EXHIBITION 2014

The Zsuzsi Roboz Prize (Awarded byThe Teddy Smith and Zsuzsi Roboz Art Trust) Paul Newland

The Doreen McIntosh Prize Michael Cooper

The Arts Club Charitable Trust Prize Christy Yates and Eigil Nordstrum

The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers Prize Jane Corsellis

The Dry Red Press Award Angela Bell

The NEAC Critics’ Prize Salliann Putman

Help us stay in touch – If you use email, help us to stay in touch with you better. Sending an email to friends@neac.co.uk will enable us to sendyou last-minute reminders or new information about NEAC events. Richard Pikesley, Editor

Data Protection Act: Please inform us if you object to having your name and address passed on to NEAC members for their mailing lists. Otherwise, we will assume that it is acceptable.Email friends@neac.co.uk or write to Friends Administrator, Middlehill Farm, Marrowbone Lane, Bothenhampton, Bridport, Dorset DT6 4BU. The NEAC is a registered charity No. 295780

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Mark your diaries now for the NEACAnnual Open ExhibitionFirst Bite event for Monday June 15Friends and membersPrivate View Wednesday June 17

See page 5 for details of free workshops running during exhibitionExhibition Dates Wednesday June 17 – Saturday June 27

Charlotte Sorapure Don McCullin

Internationally renowned photojournalist Don McCullin has been a witnessand chronicler to the disasters of war. Like Goya in the 18th Century, hehas seen and recorded the darker side of human nature – of man’sinhumanity to man and has not come out of it unscathed.During our sittings, he would frequently recount stories of the tragedies

he has witnessed. The difficulty was how to portray someone who is soobviously haunted by the past, without resorting to any clichés. The aimwas for a compelling image; to try and achieve a compassionate and yetpsychologically penetrating study of the man, rather than just a literaldepiction, with all the attributes of his profession.Whereas a photograph is taken in an instant, a painted portrait is an

accumulation of many moments in time. It is a slow and deliberate processto arrive at resolution and completeness. Trying to contain and convey hisrestless vitality was a challenge, because, for Don, sitting for the portraitrequired an uneasy, enforced stillness, and initially, he likened theexperience to being “in the psychiatrist’s chair”. The observer had becomethe observed.Don’s complex inner world had to be hinted at or inferred. The

composition of the painting is off-kilter, with the figure coming into thepicture from the right. He appears almost cornered, and has adopted aprotective gesture, with a crossed arm and sidelong glance, as if lookinginto the past.The chair provides rectilinear structure, and its high back frames his

head, in a way that is reminiscent of a photographic print. The heavymilitary trench coat seemed appropriate, partly because of its association

with combat, but alsobecause it too offersprotection, as well asbeing timeless andsculptural in form.With winter, one has a

sense of eternal sleepand Don has talkedabout his landscapes ofSomerset as beingreminiscent of battlefields.He may have retreatedto the beauty and calmof Somerset, but cannotescape hispreoccupation withdeath. A paraphrase ofone of his landscapes isin the background.

Mary JacksonPostcard from Tasmania

Mary Jackson Tom painting towards Cygnet, Tasmania